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Several new candidates for Columbia County offices and other local races emerged by the time qualifying for the 2012 elections closed at noon Friday.

Especially crowded are the School Board races, with two challengers lining up to run in District 4 against incumbent Roxanne Whitaker, and two of three expected candidates filing to run for the vacant District 1 seat.

A 12-year-old Evans boy was sent to an area hospital as a precaution today after the golf car on which he and another boy were riding flipped in an Evans neighborhood.

The boy, along with a 13-year-old, was riding the vehicle on nature trails inside the Sumter Landing subdivision, off Mullikin Road, about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday when the vehicle swerved off the trail, hit a stump and overturned, said Columbia County Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Brockman.

Two Harlem teens were arrested late Tuesday in connection to a recent armed robbery of two teens in Martinez.

Deontay Lemarcus Green, 17, of Tolbert Drive, was charged with armed robbery and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Jeffrey Taylor Ray, 18, of Joy Road, was charged with making false statements.

Real estate agents probably wouldn’t like it, and many otherwise unaware residents might be alarmed. But it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to install signs around Riverwood Plantation pointing out that, yes, apartments are going to be built in that community.

The issue pops up from time to time. Usually it comes as word again recirculates through the suburban grapevine that apartments are part of the overall plan for the massive development surrounding the Greenbrier schools complex.

As trucks and trailers and RVs pulled into Evans Towne Center Park Thursday afternoon, the Fatback's BBQ and Rib Shack team put the finishing touches on their barbecue camp.

Brothers Corey and Bobby Brinson and friend Rick Edwards planned to relax for the evening before they fire up the smoker for the third annual Papa Joe's Banjo-B-Que Bluegrass Festival and Barbecue Cook-Off.

The festival, sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society, begins at 5 p.m. Friday. Live entertainment and other events will continue Saturday at 11 a.m.

A Grovetown teenager was not seriously injured in a single-car wreck Tuesday.

Samantha Moores, 17, of Fornum Drive, was taken to the Georgia Health Sciences University Medical Center with minor injuries after being extricated from her car.

At about 10:30 a.m., Moores was driving east on Wrightsboro Road near Reynolds Road, when her tires went off the road onto the shoulder, Columbia County sheriff’s Staff Sgt. Ray Childress said. Moores over-corrected and the Nissan 240SX spun into a ditch.